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- Scarpa, Simone, 1976-
(författare)
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The spatial manifestation of inequality : residential segregation in Sweden and its causes
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis examines the relationship between income inequality and residential segregation in Swedish cities. In recent years, in Sweden, much attention has been given to the direction of causality from residential segregation to income inequality. Residential segregation is considered to lead to a differentiation of opportunities between neighbourhoods and, therefore, to be a contributing factor to or even a major cause of income inequality in cities. The thesis focuses on the opposite direction of causality, from income inequality to residential segregation. In fact, residential segregation can also be seen as the spatial manifestation of existing disparities in income distribution, since residential location choices are always (although not exclusively) made within a predetermined framework of economic constraints.Specifically, two research questions are addressed in this thesis. What institutional factors, in the Swedish context, favour the transformation of the social divide between specific population subgroups into a spatial divide between those groups? To what extent and in what ways does income inequality contribute to the development of residential segregation in Swedish cities?The first part of the thesis explains why Swedish cities are characterized by higher levels of residential segregation than cities of other countries characterized by higher levels of income inequality. The historical and comparative analyses developed in the first two studies indicate that it is not so much the magnitude of immigration that accounts for this difference between Swedish cities and their more unequal counterparts in other countries but, rather, the institutional factors influencing the modes of incorporation of immigrants into cities.The second part of the thesis analyses how, in recent decades, the increase in income inequality has influenced residential segregation patterns in Malmö and in the three major Swedish metropolitan areas. The third and the fourth study show that, during the studied period, the widening of income disparities between neighbourhoods mirrored the general upward trend in income inequality in the population. The growth of the immigrant population contributed only slightly to this trend and income inequality was primarily driven by changes in the distribution of market incomes. During the late study period, however, income sorting processes have played a steadily more important role in contributing to economic residential segregation. Therefore, neighbourhood-based urban policies have not succeeded to reverse, or even just impede, the trend towards an increased spatial clustering of poverty and wealth in Swedish cities.
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| 2. |
- Berlin, Marie, 1965-
(författare)
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Out-of-Home Care and Educational Outcomes : Prevalence, Patterns and Consequences
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to examine educational stratification in the context of out-of-home care (OHC; foster family care, residential care) and to place one of society’s most vulnerable groups in the fields of social stratification and family complexity research. About 5% of the Swedish population experience OHC during childhood or adolescence. OHC is not only a matter of protecting children and youth; it is also intended to improve future opportunities and compensate for adverse childhood factors. However, a vast body of international research, including Swedish studies, shows that a substantial proportion of young people from OHC have poor school performance and low educational attainment as adults. Furthermore, this is strongly associated with their high risk of other adverse outcomes in life. To date there are no signs of improvement in this regard, and the disadvantage of having a low education is increasing in today’s knowledge-based society.Many previous OHC studies have relied on small, local samples, and longitudinal data are often lacking. In this respect, Swedish researchers are well positioned to contribute to the field through research based on our high-quality population registers. The main data source in this thesis – the Child Welfare Intervention Register – covers half a century of OHC data. Based on these data, an overview of OHC prevalence in Sweden and patterns of educational outcomes are presented in the introductory chapter. The thesis further consists of five individual studies investigating different aspects of the transition through the educational system to adult life among children and youth from OHC. Two of the five studies focus on children who spent most of their childhood in OHC and for whom society has assumed a long-term commitment of parental responsibilities.The descriptive data show that patterns of poor educational outcomes in the OHC population have remained stable as long as they can be followed in the registers. Study I shows that youth who exited long-term care were disadvantaged as compared to youth without OHC experience, both in terms of educational attainment and regarding the strong association between poor school performance and other adverse outcomes in young adulthood. Up to 55% of their excess risks of later psychosocial problems were statistically attributable to dismal school performance. Study II shows that 54% of clients in substance-misuse treatment in the 1980s had been in OHC, half before their teen years and half as teenagers. In this group, OHC was associated with excess mortality during the 30-year follow-up from exit from treatment, with statistical significance mainly for females who had entered OHC before their teens. School failure was more common in the OHC population than for misuse clients without OHC experience, and was strongly associated with the excess mortality of females. Two Nordic comparative studies (Studies III and IV) show that the OHC population had a substantially higher risk of not completing upper-secondary education across countries, and that poor performance in primary school inflicted a greater risk in OHC youth of being NEET in young adulthood than for their peers without OHC experience. Study V shows that the intergenerational transmission of education was weak and inconsistent in the foster care setting, and that living in a highly educated foster family did not have a robust positive effect on foster children’s educational outcomes.
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| 3. |
- Brännström, Lars, 1972-
(författare)
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Phantom of the Neighbourhood : Longitudinal Studies on Area-based Conditions and Individual Outcomes
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation consists of three self-contained but interrelated empirical studies focusing on theoretical, empirical and political questions in the multidisciplinary field of neighbourhood effect research. Along with a comprehensive introductory essay, each study addresses questions concerning the potential influence of neighbourhood characteristics on individual social and economic outcomes at different life stages. Study I combines longitudinal register and survey data from the ‘golden era’ of Swedish welfare policy to evaluate a hypothesised impact of neighbourhood poverty during adolescence on a wide range of outcomes (including, but not limited to, educational and employment status) within a counterfactual model framework based on matching on propensity scores. Extensive empirical analyses indicate that, when two groups of children who are identical according to observed factors before age 10 (including household income, family structure and welfare receipt) live in different types of neighbourhood in adolescence, the outcome for those who grow up in a poor neighbourhood is not more likely to be worse than for those who grow up in a more affluent neighbourhood. Study II considers the maximum theoretical scope of unique neighbourhood influence experienced during the years of growth on individuals’ later life income and social assistance recipiency. A three-level hierarchical linear model is applied to simultaneously distinguish variation in the outcomes over time from variation that is attributable to differences between neighbourhoods. By utilising longitudinal register data derived from a birth cohort who grew up in Stockholm at a time when Swedish welfare policy ambitions were at a peak, this study attempts to estimate the long-term significance of neighbourhood origin in the Swedish setting. The analyses clearly show that prior place of residence accounts for an exceedingly modest proportion of the variation in cohort members’ subsequent income and receipt of social assistance. Study III explores the hypothesised negative impact of disadvantaged neighbourhood conditions, individual disadvantage, and degree of labour market establishment on levels of social trust. Using data from the Swedish Longitudinal Survey among Unemployed, ordered logit regression analyses indicate that low levels of social trust are contingent upon perceived neighbourhood disorder, personal powerlessness, perceived fear of victimisation, and accumulated episodes of temporary employment. The tentative results also indicate that neighbourhood disorder, powerlessness, and fear of victimisation interact, magnifying the negative impact on social trust.
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| 4. |
- Forsman, Hilma, 1985-
(författare)
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Addressing poor educational outcomes among children with out-of-home care experience : Studies on impact, pathways, and interventions
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Children with out-of-home care (OHC; foster family/residential care) experience is a high-risk group for future adverse outcomes. With an ambition of supporting the design of effective preventive child welfare measures targeting children in OHC, the overall aim of this thesis is to examine education as a possible intervention path for improving their development and overall life chances.The thesis consists of four interrelated empirical studies that address different aspects of poor educational outcomes among children with OHC experience by means of analyses of longitudinal survey and register data, and evaluations of two interventions aimed at improving their basic academic skills.Study I examined the hypothesized causal effect of poor school performance on adverse outcomes in young adulthood among children with OHC experience. The results showed that poor school performance has an impact on later psychosocial problems net of observed and unobserved factors, suggesting that the estimated effects allow for causal interpretations.Study II explored educational outcomes at different stages in the educational career, and pathways to varied educational outcomes for children with OHC experience and their peers. The results showed that the OHC group had lower educational outcomes across the life course. Yet, by large, their educational pathways did not differ significantly from their peers – cognitive ability and previous school performance had the largest associations with the outcomes in both groups. However, the influence of these factors were weaker in the OHC group whilst the influence of the birth family’s attitude towards higher education was stronger.Study III aimed at furthering our understanding of the book-gifting program the Letterbox Club’s potential impact on foster family children’s reading skills. The results showed that participation in the program was associated with small improvements. In general, the program was well received by children and carers, and could result in increased reading. The study furthermore suggested that promotion of carer involvement may improve its potential impact.Study IV explored the process of conducting a structured paired reading intervention involving foster family children and their carers. Findings showed that it is possible to engage carers in interventions targeting the education of children in OHC, but that this is no automatic process – carers need a rationale for getting involved, and support in delivering the intervention.In sum, this thesis shows that improving the educational outcomes of children in OHC may be a viable intervention path in supporting their life course development, a path that historically has been overlooked. The thesis furthermore shows examples of promising interventions which may improve the basic academic skills of children in OHC. The results also point out that the child welfare system should provide early and continuous educational support, and highlight the importance of addressing adults’ attitudes, expectations, and involvement in these children’s education.
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| 5. |
- Kahlmeter, Anna, 1981-
(författare)
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Stressful life events and risks for social exclusion in the youth-to-adulthood transition : Findings from Swedish longitudinal data
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Family background and childhood conditions have long held a special position in the academic literature as an explanation for young people’s life chances. Less attention has been paid to circumstances and events on the cusp of adulthood. This thesis aims to improve the understanding of how stressful life events are associated with future trajectories of education and labour market attachment. The thesis comprises three empirical studies, all of which draw on longitudinal micro data from Swedish administrative registers.Study I examines different types of housing instability events, among students in upper secondary school still in the parental nest, focusing on non-forced moves as well as eviction threats and forced relocations. It assesses the association between housing instability and educational attainment, operationalized as graduation from upper secondary school. The results suggest that the instability and stress following forced relocations, repeated relocations and long-distance relocations are of particular significance for understanding the link between housing instability and educational outcomes. Single short-distance relocations seem to have little impact on educational success. Findings also indicate that eviction threats, where a forced relocation was arrested, still may have implications for educational attainment. However, sensitivity tests showed that these estimates were not robust to confounding. Averting an eviction, even at this late stage of housing instability, may thus protect against early school leaving. Further research is however needed.Study II follows young individuals from the time of their residential emancipation and maps their labour market establishment trajectories until their mid-thirties, by means of sequence analysis. It then investigates to what extent the experience of economic hardship, measured as different degrees of social assistance receipt, is associated with adverse labour market trajectories. The results indicate that, for a majority of social assistance recipients, the system works as intended, and they transition to education or work rather swiftly, particularly if economic hardship is brief. Extensive hardship, however, is associated with elevated risks of long-term labour market exclusion that persists well into adulthood.Study III draws on register data for 12 complete successive cohorts and examines the link between severe violent victimization in young adulthood and labour market exclusion at ages 25 and 30. It puts particular emphasis on the moderating role of offending and gender. The findings suggest that victimized women are a particularly disadvantaged group, having faced a range of social and financial strain. Female victims of violent crime also face elevated risks of labour market exclusion, both in the short- and the long-term, and regardless of criminal offending. For men, however, violent offending moderates the association. While violent victimization adds to the risk of labour market exclusion for male violent offenders, male non-offenders display no elevated risks.Taken together, the thesis demonstrates that the experience of these life events in the transition from youth to adulthood place young individuals at heightened risk of educational shortfall and exclusion from the labour market, both in the immediate aftermath and later in life. Implications of the findings are that a long-term perspective is warranted in considerations of both preventive and reactive measures.
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| 6. |
- Spjuth, Ola, Docent, 1977-, et al.
(författare)
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Combining Prediction Intervals on Multi-Source Non-Disclosed Regression Datasets
- 2019
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the Eighth Symposium on Conformal and Probabilistic Prediction and Applications. - : PMLR. ; , s. 53-65
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Conformal Prediction is a framework that produces prediction intervals based on the output from a machine learning algorithm. In this paper we explore the case when training data is made up of multiple parts available in different sources that cannot be pooled. We here consider the regression case and propose a method where a conformal predictor is trained on each data source independently, and where the prediction intervals are then combined into a single interval. We call the approach Non-Disclosed Conformal Prediction (NDCP), and we evaluate it on a regression dataset from the UCI machine learning repository using support vector regression as the underlying machine learning algorithm, with varying number of data sources and sizes. The results show that the proposed method produces conservatively valid prediction intervals, and while we cannot retain the same efficiency as when all data is used, efficiency is improved through the proposed approach as compared to predicting using a single arbitrarily chosen source.
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